La Belle Dame Sans Merci: 53:

"Please Take Me Home"

She's light as a bird, like she could fly away any moment.

Depending on the terrain, they alternate between running and carrying. In the desert she simply follows the impression of his chakra, which he takes care to project clearly. Her condition hasn't detoriated, but she's worn thin and still hurt: he shouldn't have let her try this.

But this is Hanabi-san, not Hinata-san, which means there is really nothing he could have done to impose his will on her save employ brute strength, which would not have gone over well and would doubtlessly have been quite a painful experience for the both of them.

She might be stubborn in her arrogance, but stupidity isn't in her, and she's – caring rather less for appearances, of late. There is nothing left to be proud for: they are still well within the desert and its flat terrain when she allows herself to be lifted.

It is strange, honestly, that it does not feel strange at all (was the desert just a dream?): air that smells of trees and water, ground that does not lie flat. Neji's presence, different but only marginally.

"How is my sister?" she asks. "Anko-sensei?"

Preciously little has changed, according this his obedient report. Apparently she has two nephews and a niece now.

"I see," she says, and sleeps. Hasn't been able to, for quite some time.

Eventually, after Temari and the gray-faced ANBU have caught up, he brings her to the Hokage, and the hospital.

"I'll give her eyes a try," Tsunade-sama says. "But it's a delicate procedure. I will need to prepare."

Neji nods in place of Hanabi-san, who is unconscious, and elects to bring her home. She doesn't protest, when she awakens. Like all Hyuuga she is trained to internalize emotion, suffers it alone deep inside; he must admit she puts on a fairly good show of normalcy, but then that might be merely because she has never been very normal.

The children are wary of her; only the eldest son, new to his Genin team, ever approaches, and evidently her very empty eyes frighten him. Understandable, for one used to relying so heavy on the Byakugan.

She could see sound, once upon a time. Now she sees nothing.

"Do you mind them?" Hinata asks, kindly and plump, motherly. "The children, I mean. I heard about…"

"The miscarriage," Hanabi fills in. Her expression is hard, she can feel it; but then it almost always is, skin drawn taut over prominent bones. She was something approaching beautiful, for a while, in Sand. During the same period of time when she was something approaching happy, with flesh to fill out her clothes and with loved ones to fulfill something else. "Don't worry. It was a masked abortion."

Sensitive, concerned Hinata does not ask anything more. Leaves her mostly alone, which is what nearly everyone does and which is good.

Anko-sensei visits, but Hanabi does not need her anymore. Her legs may be broken, figuratively speaking, but if she can only walk with the elder woman as a crutch, then she'd rather not, satisfied to wait until she's healed enough to manage on her own; or to die when she fails and falls.

Her father near enough weeps, upon first sight of his ruined darling. He is old, now; Neji is the Acting Head of the Clan, in which no children will ever be Branched again. Hanabi is fine with that.

Once only she activates the seal, staring blindly ahead as Neji screams at her feet. It's the first time anyone can remember hearing that particular sound.

She's not sure why she does it.

Just this strange combination of triggers, the paranoia, the palpable helplessness, and I am so sick of being incompetently protected.

"I'm sorry," she offers, long afterward. "I cannot promise I will not do it again. I will accept retribution."

Neji is Clan Head, not mean-spirited per see. She falls on her knees in a ceremony, feeling nothing, sensing the large assembly around them and dutifully, negligently, accepting formal forgiveness.

It is a gray morning; she is wearing an ash-colored kimono and feels like a corpse. Steps forward to kneel for Neji on gravel the leaves impressions on her knees, feels his condescending, still faintly trembling hand brush acceptance over the crown of her bowed head.

What does it matter?

Almost everyone who has ever mattered is dead.

The Hokage said she'd need time to prepare before she essayed to repair Hanabi's sight – days pass, weeks, months. Time has gone slow but distant, as though it is happening to someone else.

She works missions, much of the time; isn't qualified for S-ranks anymore, not by a long shot, but she's still a Jounin, deservedly. Rock Lee tutors her blind taijutsu; some ninja from Sound teach her techniques based upon noise and hearing.

She lives in darkness in a dark world, but occasionally, with time, she feels it fades into gray, with some slight easing of the enduring ache clinging to her, inside. There is no sunlight anymore, but sometimes she is able to imagine she glimpses a hint of old starlight, bleak and frayed.

xxxxx

Naruto goes to visit her once. Initially he is not admitted, swarmed by a formidable horde of insects, blank eyes staring through him, into the pulsating red core. He swats at them helplessly, trying to avoid the stings, to mute the instinct to squish them.

Autocratic tones issue from behind a pair of elaborate sliding doors, husky and aristocratic, "Explain the fuss."

The insect-servants' sudden palpable stillness, the hushed fear that has overtaken them, is what clues him in; not the voice itself, grown old and rusty from his scant, scattered remembrances; she meant little, though what she symbolized carries great importance. I was allowed to be a prince once, slew her dragon, even if it was too little too late. It was a lost chance, one of his many might-have-beens. A precious one.

"Let him in." What the Leaf princess demands, the Leaf princess is granted. In matters that carry no significance, at any rate.

She is seated sedately, in the fine classic position that kills his toes, turns her head towards him in – not quite the normal way. Not angling her eyes towards him, but her ear.

"Hanabi," he says, moved into stillness, ants crawling underneath his skin. She doesn't invite the pity that wells through him. "I'm sorry. Are you better?" There are certain things that cannot be healed, so let us stay positive, let us concentrate on the parts that might be mended: "The hag's damn slow about it, isn't she?"

This is, after all, her tragedy. Fiercely personal, and he has grown up at last to understand he cannot meddle for the wrong reasons.

She regards him evenly (rather, looks as though she does). "I am certain she is making every effort." I am valuable, after all. Trophy wife. Super ninja. Leaf princess.

Blind Hyuuga.

Yes, indeed she must be (making every effort). Sometimes your best just isn't good enough.

"Um," he says, softly clumsy now, reaching deep. "If it's not – I mean if it's too painful for you then don't, but – but Gaara?"

"I killed him," she says with some measure of empty satisfaction. "It was the last thing I did, in Sand."

"Oh," slips out of his mouth, and he bites his tongue. Struggles with that, hard and long. He was my friend. I did not know him, but he was my friend. I saved your life and you're my comrade, and you killed him.

He should be grateful, should be hateful, should be forgiving. He isn't, isn't any of it. Will be, but for now he is numb. This is too far away, after too much.

She adds, contemplatively, like one measuring out a dept, "You did save my life." And for this reason she offers him the answers to the three mysteries, of which she is not ashamed though prefers not to speak. It is not for anyone else to understand; let them have what opinions they like, the truth is mine alone.

"Shukaku had devoured his soul." (one)

"He knew about Kankurou and I." (two)

"I lost my husband's child deliberately." (three)

She looks at him steadily, only she is not looking at all. "Please leave."

That meeting is with him now, several months later during an awkward family dinner, as Sakura-chan brings up her involvement in the preparations for the upcoming attempt at restoring Hanabi's eyesight. "We should be ready in another month or so," she says. "I believe there is a fair chance of success."

Sasuke raises a slim eyebrow, chin resting in his inky palm. His food has been finished or abandoned, a finger drumming absently against the stack of documents Sakura-chan forbade him from perusing during dinner; his hands have developed new calluses, rough patches of skin from where the pen rests, to compliment those which are legacies of weapons.

I can hardly work interesting missions, between ruling Sound and my detoriating chakra condition. I do it anyway, but I am aware it is not wise.

"Is there much of a point?" he asks bluntly. "She's fucked up in the head, the business with Neji proves it." Though the smirk shadowing his mouth is anything but disapproving.

"You're one to talk," Naruto mutters, rather affectionately.

Sakura-chan nobly ignores him, as does Itachi (save for his perpetual stare of numbing hatred). "She has an excellent mission record, I've heard she's getting better, and besides, she made amends for that, didn't she?"

Itachi, who has been very quiet, focused on Sasuke (which is not unusual per see, but this is the bad kind of quiet, red eyes locked on his parent in – anxiety), offers, "Neji-san was understandably upset, for a long time." It is easy to forget the boy (young man, now, or almost. older than sasuke was when he left) is the one closest to the Hyuuga. "I don't know if she had much of a choice; they're keeping her away from people."

"Of course they do," Sasuke mutters.

Naruto bursts out, "Forcing her? They wouldn't!" The old fuckwits definitely, if they had any opportunity, what with their nauseating Branching traditions, but Neji and Hinata – redeemed hero Neji and sweet wonderful Hinata? Never, no way, not ever.

"They can't," Sasuke interjects, moodily. Naruto can't blame him for his sour temper, this time. Not with that big damn bruise discoloring most of the lower left half of his face. "This is Hyuuga Hanabi we're talking about. If you honestly think she wouldn't know to use the Branch Seal if she felt she had to, you're an idiot."

Hanabi was S-class, before she lost her sight.

She took Neji down carelessly, apologized carelessly. What did it matter? She is the Kazekage widow, the slayer of the Ichibi, the perfect Hyuuga specimen. She can do whatever the hell she pleases (it's just there isn't anything she wants).

"Of course," Itachi says, dismissively, politely. "Perhaps I should put Rina-chan to bed?"

"Please do," Sakura-san smiles, and the girl makes a face but complies readily enough, spell-bound by her brother complex. Itachi is the best and the worst older brother there has ever been.

In the children's absence Sakura-chan's expression grows sober, skeletal. "Sasuke," she says with a hollow kind of authority. "Please remove the clothing covering the injured areas."

He looks rather forbidding, tensing (you notice once you know him). "It's really not necessary for you to meddle, Sakura."

"Sasuke," Kakashi interjects mildly. "As long as you both give as good as you take it's not my business what you get up to in private, but getting healed can hardly hurt."

If not, the familiar pretend-surprised expression fills in with aging gleefulness that really should not still provoke or fool anyone, that is actually what you like, going with the pain…

"Fine," Sasuke snaps, slipping out of his shirt with a little less grace than one would normally have expected.

Yes, Naruto reflects, transfixed by the sight. Yes, there are reasons Itachi's hatred for him has reached new levels, why he wouldn't be surprised at an assassination attempt. Has been through two of them, as far as he's aware, though they were not very serious, healed by Kyuubi in a matter of seconds. Itachi must have known they would be, so they hardly count. Naruto can smile them away, grit his teeth and wonder if the boy will get serious. He hopes not, for everyone's sake, though maybe that's hypocritical.

They got along better, considerably better, just after he'd returned from Sand, but there are things you do not do to people's mothers, not if you want any possibility of forgiveness. Intellectually Itachi must know, everyone must know, that Naruto would not be uninjured were it not for Kyuubi but – it doesn't much help. Espiecally since probably neither one of them would be perpetually wounded were it not for the demon (sometimes he likes to think that, daydream another might-have-been. sometimes he hates the thought, chafing at the control it affords the nine tails over his present situation. i shape my life myself! …don't i?).

Itachi's hatred is understandable and complex, particularly if he has any inkling of what the sight now presented does to Naruto, that visage of Sasuke's torso deliberately marked up, reddish scratches and bruises from hands and teeth (claws and fangs, more like) – the sight should horrify him, with the blatant ownership etched in Dadaistic patterns across Sasuke's skin. Should provoke another promise of a lifetime – I'll put a definite stop to this fucked-up shit, we'll work out our happy ending.

But really, it just turns him on.

Fuck you very much, Kyuubi. Except so many of the fox demon's instincts are Naruto's honest feelings, at this point.

It used to be so much about who was stronger, but that can't matter anymore, because no one is as powerful as the Fox Demon of the Nine Tails, and uncomplicated hatred for the Kyuubi is impossible because it would be too much like hating himself, and he's been hated enough, thanks.

They've experimented, seals, restraints, the Oiroke no Jutsu: Sasuke is not generally averse to a rough fight in bed, but there are – we established certain lines, once long ago when we were twelve. This far, and this far only, they can stretch them and live with each other, but cross the border and the bond will snap you dead. They cannot afford to cross these lines.

Kyuubi/Naruto is marginally gentler with a girl, which compensates to some degree for Sasuke being infuriatingly, panic-inducingly physically weaker in that form, and besides the fucking in itself is better; preparation, like lubrication, is an unfamiliar concept to the demon, and once again Sasuke doesn't mind, every now and then, but eventually it starts to be really painful and really humiliating to sit afterwards.

If he does the worst of it as a girl, his real body escapes the brunt of the damage and is mostly whole afterwards. The Mangekyou is the only thing that matters, and it remains untouched by the sex-switching.

"Anything else?" Sakura-chan asks.

Sasuke shakes his head impatiently.

She gives him a very level look. "Are you quite sure about that? I don't think any of us would like you to be the first man in history to bleed to death from the ass."

Sasuke glares in outrage and Naruto bites back – something, a laugh or a sob or anything in between. "I took care of it," Sasuke says shortly. "And keep your voice down." Itachi does not need to hear that.

Rina even less.

"Naruto," Sakura-chan says in the sterile voice she uses with patients, so kindly authoritative, it's for your own good… "If this is how bad it's gotten, I'd like you to stay away from my daughter. I'm sorry, but I have to put her best interests first. She can't defend herself, at all. If you slipped just a little it'd be too late."

"I would never hurt Rina-chan!" The words are thick, reflexive, ardent desperation.

"Perhaps not," Sakura-chan says tightly. "But you wouldn't need to, in the stricter sense. She isn't Itachi. She doesn't need to see the ugly side of adulthood yet."

"I agree," Sasuke says unexpectedly.

Of course he does. Any self-respecting, responsible adult who truly cares about their child would.

"I see," says Naruto, in a strange thin voice bearing little resemblance to his normal tones. "Yeah. I guess it's better that way."

No it isn't, how can it be, she's my baby, I love her!

Only Kyuubi's not losing their internal battles anymore, and yes, I do love her.

"When you get better," Sakura-chan starts.

"Sure," Naruto interrupts sharply. "Of course."

Because we know. Team Seven, always and forever, in the beginning and the end, and yes, that end is drawing ever and rapidly closer.

Because he knows that under the necessary surface layer of forced faith in the happy endings they've long since lost touch with, she is dreadfully certain he will not be getting better.

He's going to prove her wrong of course, but it still hurts, and since Kyuubi awakened Naruto has learned of fear, and of desperation.

They do not speak of that. It is easier to trade trite remarks about the Hyuuga, the Kazekage widow.

("i can't get over how gaara knew she had an affair with his brother," naruto muttered at one point, home from his brief audience with the leaf princess and distraught.

sasuke raised a haughty brow, looking up only momentarily from his eternal stacks of paperwork. "you knew about me and kakashi. he hadn't even married her because he wanted to.")

Her alleged affair with Kankurou is a popular subject, hushed whispers in the streets, although few would seriously believe it.

"It has to have been more complicated than that," Sakura-chan says. "I mean – he was a eunuch. It could hardly have been about sex, or looks for that matter." He was maimed in more ways than one, but the one person in the family not to be stunted emotionally. Amazingly, what a man, after all, to be whole and loving after the Ichibi and the civil war.

They all remember Konohamaru declaring, Shit, if she preferred his castrate brother, Gaara must've brought an entirely new level of bad to being bedded.

Sasuke, who is not entirely unamused by the notion, looks suddenly thoughtful, surprising everyone present by deigning to partake in the conversation: "Is she actually barren?"

"No?" Sakura-chan replies. Elaborates, obviously confused as though why Sasuke is still directing that introvert but undeniably interested gaze at her. "The miscarriage didn't leave any permanent damage. If she just gained a bit of weight I reckon it'd be fine."

"Huh," Sasuke says, in a slow considering tone of voice.

Across the table Kakashi blinks, clearly seeing where this is going and clearly amused, in a rather bitter way.

Naruto and Sakura look at them, Sasuke and Kakashi, Kakashi and Sasuke, and speak simultaneously.

"Why is this of any interest to you?"

"I swear to god, if you cheat on me with Hyuuga Hanabi I will kill someone."

"No reason," Sasuke says, exercising his mystical expertise in blending scornful and smug tones into entirely new levels of condescending.

Green and blue eyes snap immediately to their old instructor, who smiles blithely and raises his hands in mock defense. "Don't look at me," he says, in the light tone that announces they won't get anything out of him until he's good and ready. Likely long after Sasuke's caved, in other words.

Easier to talk about others, yes, but easy can only carry you so far.

"I'll go say goodnight to Rina-chan," Naruto mutters, trying not to sound rebellious. He's not going to ask permission.

Sakura-chan nods softly, Kakashi politely ignores him.

In the familiar pastel bedroom Itachi levels a red glare at him, seated on the floor close to the headboard with a book open across his knees.

"Get out," Naruto tells him. Itachi studies him briefly, so very much like Sasuke sixteen years ago – passive-aggressive and brim-full of issues he won't let anyone touch. It's just Naruto knows Sasuke, in a way he doesn't think Itachi will ever allow himself to be known, to Naruto.

Rather unlike Sasuke at his age the kid doesn't argue with the command, just shrugs and gets up and out.

(it is a chilling thing, when he remembers it, that physically he is more contemporary with sasuke's son than with sasuke)

Rina-chan looks up at him sleepily as he takes Itachi's place and kneels over her, eyes aching over his smile. She doesn't need to see them red.

"Daddy?" she mumbles. Eight years old, soft and trusting and the most miraculous thing in the history of the world. His daughter, our girl.

"Yeah, baby girl," he mutters, holding her carefully, carefully cradled close, so she won't notice the desperation that always laces last touches. He smoothes a curly lock of hair behind her ear, breathes in his crazy love. Knows he shouldn't speak, she isn't stupid and will draw conclusions, but there is no time and some things are more important than propriety. So he whispers only a little huskily, confides that she's his best girl, always will be, I love you, you must know that, I love you so very much, you're brilliant and you're going to have a brilliant life, and did I mention I love you, my baby?

xxxxx

It is a very normal day. She has fairly recently returned from a minor mission, is jogging home after a light bout of sparring with Rock Lee.

The sunlight feels weak on skin used to the desert heat; she wishes she could take a different trek but is tired, mainly from listlessness, her chakra sensitivity clumsy and muted.

She hasn't seen a thing after the image of her dead husband and brother-in-law was lost to her. Remembers walking through the musty, dusky corridors, feeling her way forward with chakra and bleeding hands on the walls, walking past fighting, dying, wailing men she did not stop for. Did not stop at all, until she had reached the familiar storage room, stumbled into the old comfort of tree, robes, paint and poison. She crawled into the largest of Kankurou's remaining puppets, hid there until the ANBU men found her and took her away. She did not protest, did not aid them.

The blackness was a relief, then. It isn't anymore.

Hasn't been for a long time. She is angry, scared, lost inside this suddenly substandard body.

I could see sound.

(i could see you)

Frustrated, chilled, she nevertheless notices the rather impressive concentration of chakra speeding towards her. The line of her mouth grows harder – she's not moving out of the way. People move for her, always have, like they ought to. So she keeps going, too angry to stop, to even shift minutely to the side so they may pass each other smoothly.

Except (and she does realize this, cocks a mental eyebrow in challenge) the other person isn't giving an inch of ground either.

Which means they collide harshly, not a full speed but not exactly slowly either, tumble gracefully. She lands crouched, turns back towards the man out of habit, gallingly aware it will not do her any good (the hokage said, soon. next week, probably. with a seventy-three percent chance of success).

Itachi is standing up as well, cursing fate. He should have known Murphy had it in for him.

Hyuuga Hanabi, indeed. He's heard so much, seen so little. Will likely see quite a lot more, in the very immediate future.

He should probably say something. It's difficult; he can't sort out how he feels about this development.

"Uchiha." Her tone is low and not uninviting, the voice itself scratchy-hoarse; betraying damaged vocal chords.

Forcing a reply is easier than expected. "Yeah," he says. "It's interesting to meet you." A pleasure? Oh, no. Nice? Couldn't say. But interesting? Yes, definitely.

"You're the son," she concludes.

"I'm Uchiha Itachi." Not a child, not for along time.

She shrugs, lightly. "Sasuke's heir, then. The one Neji mentioned."

A little pleased, he offers, cautiously, "You're a popular topic. I've heard more than mentions." Aggravation grows again. "I'd like to fight you, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind."

They do it by a stream, at one of the less frequented training sites. Master of the Mangekyou Sharingan and its genjutsu that he is, Itachi is certainly hampered as well by her blindness. Were he not used to the Hyuuga and their Bloodline Limit he would not have noticed, but the way she tilts her head is different; for sound, not for sight.

Careful both, and clever in nasty calculating ways, neither one ever quite stops holding back.

It's not bad, all the same. Rather brilliant, in fact.

Afterwards she wades into the stream, her movements tentative for the first time, like a blind person might properly act. It must be courtesy of the desert, he decides, watching her return to land and sit down beside him, legs stretched long and maimed in front of her, body resting on her elbows. Wet and clinging her clothes obscure little, of the ruined legs or the many scars or the painful thinness. He – doesn't feel quite comfortable, keeping silent (which is a first, and attempts though fails to throw him). I could rather not-dislike her, he thinks.

Into the stillness, contemplative and a smudge distraught though obscuring that last as best as he's able (particularly from himself), he admits, musingly, just a little bit a challenge, "I'm supposed to marry you."

She does not bother turning her face towards him, lies very still, offering a sharp profile. "Why?"

Uncomfortable suddenly he stalls for time, desperate to prove it is not his innovation, "He asked if you could still have children." Offers this rather definitely like a challenge, which wasn't the point, but it's too late now.

And to his complete surprise she throws back her head and laughs, a wild bright sound. "Did he, now. Please correct me if I am at fault for presupposing the person in question is your parent."

He says nothing. Has too much to say for any of it to make it through.

"Well," she says eventually, shifting to face him after all, out of habit. "Aren't you terribly young?"

Abruptly he recalls she took the Chuunin Exam with Team Seven, the year he was born. "I'll be fourteen in three months." Then again he went through that particular ordeal at age five.

What is there to lose? Her friends are gone, her husband and her presumed soul mate and her genius gift. She's been married politically before.

Once you think about it, it is so dauntingly obvious. The Leaf princess with the perfect genes, heiress of nothing, to the next Uchiha Head. He'll inherit Sound, she will likely be named a candidate for the position of Sixth Hokage, if she recovers. A match made in heaven – from which the Bloodline Limits allegedly hail, Byakugan and Sharingan, compatible, one sprung from the other, the red eyes dominant when breeding.

Redhead Jinchuuriki, talks to sand – that was the description she had been given, the one she agreed to, setting out to be wed in the desert.

What little she knows of Itachi she cannot fault – Uchiha prodigy, skilled and precocious, reportedly quiet and able to compromise. And it's hard to wrestle praise from Neji.

"My eye surgery will hopefully take place soon. Then we'll see."

He misunderstands deliberately, muttering, "I'm told I look much like my parents."

I had a crush on your mother, when I was a little younger than you are now ('you and me both,' he doesn't reply to the question she doesn't ask). On the other hand, healthy relationships are unheard of among ninja. If they worked you'd think someone would have caught a rumor of it.

He has long been aware that both family duty and domestic peace demand he sire heirs, the more the better, and if he has to – well, Hyuuga Hanabi is not the worst alternative there could've been. Jounin on the quiet side, and her movements are spectacular. They could teach him to consider her beautiful, he thinks. If he squints.

He likes her family, at least.

Tries to phrase a polite question to encompass the many necessary inquiries, the sudden curiosity laced with an absent sort of care: the Akatsuki Incident, the marriage in the desert, the end of Sand and what happened before it. He doubts he succeeds, but apparently it is a less sensitive subject than he had imagined, all of it.

"Sometimes," she says in a soft firm voice, "I feel it was all a dream." Something that isn't a smile twists her lips. "Other times I feel I am slipping into sleep now, by being here."

Standing up, she offers a hand. Taking it, feeling the large knuckles and the rough skin over very frail bones, he stares at her feet. One of her pants legs has ridden up a tad, exposing more of the metal rod. His hip aches rather badly from the earlier connection.

Thirteen isn't a child, she remembers that. And he's fairly good company, in his moody quiet way.

"My love was for my husband's brother," she says. There is stillness, is alright to speak it: Kankurou taught her she was capable of loving after all, and no one can touch that. Not even she, anymore. "I won't care if you cheat."

The gift Gaara offered her, a simple and far from insignificant one.

"I wasn't planning to."

She shrugs.

They part as friends, in an odd way. As engaged, in matters of the heart and of the practical mind.

xxxxxxxxxx